


Memories They Hold

by shes_an_oddbird



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Comfort, F/M, Post Season 4, kind of, kind of angsty but not too much, optimistic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-27
Updated: 2017-07-27
Packaged: 2018-12-07 12:28:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,942
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11623542
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shes_an_oddbird/pseuds/shes_an_oddbird
Summary: Before fleeing the base at the end of season four, the team gather some of their belongings. Jemma wants to pack as many of her and Fitz's keepsakes that she can reasonably manage but Fitz is hesitant to hang on to anything that brings back happy memories.





	Memories They Hold

**Author's Note:**

> Its been too long but I've done it, I haven't written anything since the season ended and I missed my FitzSimmons dearly. Thanks to the Friday Prompts I managed to get something out. So here it is in response to the prompt: Comfort for the engineering vs biochem challenge. Enjoy!

She can feel the exhaustion in the room, see it on all of their faces, but in that moment, she felt hopeful and aside from brief glimpses it’s the first time she has since discovering it wasn’t Fitz standing next to her in the lab but an LMD instead. Fitz, the real Fitz, is looking her in the eye and while she can see all the trauma and the pain, she can also see where Daisy’s speech has reached him and she’s so thankful that it has she can’t even think of an adequate expression of her gratitude.

So caught up in the moment, Jemma nearly misses it when Coulson starts speaking again.

“They’ll be here soon, might want to gather a few things, we probably won’t be coming back here.”

Jemma finally pulled her eyes away from Fitz to look around what used to be their lounge. Under the ruble, it was hard to see the room in which so many important memories had taken place. Her feet started to work on their own, leading her out into the hall and towards the bunks slowing as they passed the shattered windows of the lab.

She didn’t know which upset her more, seeing her lab, her second home, in shambles or it having to be used as a refuge for those who needed protection as it had been used in the framework.

A gentle hand touched her back and she turned to see May next to her. “I know you want to say goodbye but we don’t have much time.” She nodded and picked up her pace.

The others had gotten a good ways ahead of her and had already disappeared from the hallway into their rooms except for Fitz who stood outside their shared bunk. Tears started to well up her eyes. It might as well have been yesterday that they had to negotiate their way into shared living space. Just yesterday they shared a kiss on the floor.

“I don’t think its locked.” She stated wetly.

Fitz’s eyes darted to hers and Jemma knew then that he couldn’t be left alone for long without back sliding. As she approached to open the door he averted his eyes back to the floor and backed away leaving a large gap of space between them. For a moment she wasn’t sure he would follow her in.

The room was a mess, structurally sound given the distance from the blast but covered in dust and debris from shockwave.

Their wonderful little room had faired quite well and encouraged her to take on an optimistic tone. “It could have been much worse I think, though it looks like Bridget didn’t survive the fall.” She said, inspecting the fallen device. “We wouldn’t be able to take it anyways unfortunately.” She looked back over her shoulder at him. He’d inched into the doorway and didn’t appear to care in the slightest about the television laying on the ground.

“Why don’t I pack us some clothes and you can gather some of our other things.” The suggestion deliberately referred to them together. A subtle way of telling him she wanted to stick together. She waited for him to nod in confirmation before grabbing both their go bags from the closet and determining what clothes would be needed.

Five minutes later when she had transferred their necessities over to the bags she returned to Fitz’s side. He had taken a seat at their desk with two boxes, one nearly full and the other with barely enough items to cover the bottom. Surprisingly it’s her box that’s on the verge of spilling over.

“Fitz you’ve hardly packed anything.” When she reaches past him to tip the box towards her for a better look he shoves the desk chair back, once more creating distance between them.

“I didn’t know what to pack.” He answered quietly.

“You’ve done a good job with mine I think.” Her favorite books, a notepad she jotted down ideas in, the jewelry box her grandmother had given to her; inside was the necklace he’d given her for their six-month anniversary, though he may not have known that. “What about our pictures?” She grabbed the selfie’s off the back of the desk and placed them gently in the box. “And you’ve got that sketch book in your night stand, the one you draw out ideas in, wouldn’t want to leave that behind.”

In his night stand she also finds the pictures of him and his mom, a gadget whose use she couldn’t determine, a few odds and ends and a post card from the hotel gift shop in Bucharest. She closes the top drawer and bends down to open the next one when suddenly Fitz is in front of her.

“Jemma stop, please just stop, I didn’t pack these things because-be-because I don’t-d-don’t-really need them.”

She instinctively holds the precious items to her chest.

“Why Fitz? You packed all the things so important to me.” She notices his eyes are fixed on that lower drawer and knows there’s something in there that he doesn’t want to see or doesn’t want her to see.

“It’s all just going to be taken away anyways.”

“Technically if it’s in our possession when we’re arrested they’ll have to give it back to us eventually, as long as it’s not evidence or dangerous, I doubt they’ll want to keep any of our things, bottle caps from our first beers we were legally allow to drink here in the states, baby photos, a copy of Popular Science what would they do with all that?” 

“I just don’t want to bring any of it Jemma, I don’t deserve to have those memories anymore, they’re-they’re not.”

“They’re happy.” Jemma finishes. Fitz traces the grain of the wood in the night stand with his finger. “Fine.” Jemma took the items clutched in her hands and carried them over to the desk. She placed the items in the half empty box and looked around for other things to add.

“I don’t want them.” Fitz insisted. He tried to sound firm but it came out shaky still.

She spotted the poster from Fitz’s old room on the wall and quickly pulled it down. “I heard, I’m packing them for me.” She said, inspecting the back of the frame. It wouldn’t fit in the box as is, she’d just have to take the poster. “You haven’t got a screw driver in here have you.”

“Why would you pack them for you?” Fitz asked confused by her response.

“Of course you have,” she said with a smile and a shake of her head, that had been a silly question. She pulled open the top drawer of the desk and sure enough the bright green handle of a flat head screwdriver popped right out at her. He always overfilled his designated drawers.

She pried off the back, removed the poster and rolled it neatly into a tube.

“JEMMA!”

“WHAT!” She tossed down the screw driver. 

Fitz’s shoulders sunk. “Why won’t you just leave them?”

“I’m packing them because they’re OUR memories Fitz.”

“But why would you want them, you should just toss it all, leave it here to be condemned with the rest of the damn building.”

“I won’t do that!”

“Why not?!”

“Because I don’t want to lose them, I don’t want to lose you!” Jemma shouted finally turning back on him. “I know right now you want nothing to do with them and that you think that you don’t deserve them but I know that we deserve them and I’m not going to let today be the reason that when we finally have our own place we don’t have any pictures for the wall, I’m not going to let today be the reason we don’t have a box of bottle caps and post cards to show our kids and tell them how we met or have your favorite book that your mum used to read to you to read to them.”

Fitz didn't say anything, just gaped at her.

“I know you think that we can’t have that anymore, I heard what you said to AIDA, that this-“ she gestured between them, “is dead, but it’s not.”

“Jemma-“

“Please let me finish Fitz.” She said taking a step closer to him. “I know that you’re going to need time to heal and truly I think I do too but we can do that together, even more I know we can’t do it if we’re apart-“

“Jemma-“

“We don’t have time to argue about this now Fitz, so I’m going to pack anything and everything I might ever want to see again and I want you to do the same.”

“JEMMA!”

“What?”

“You-you’ve thought about all that?”

“About what?”

“About a future and kids.”

“Oh,” Jemma paused in her frantic packing. How he didn’t know when she told him even long before they got together that she only ever saw him in her future. She was reminded of her brief conversation with his LDM and how Fitz had thought about proposing but didn’t know what she would say. “Yes of course I think about it, quite a bit actually.”

“Even after everything you saw me do.”

“Not you Fitz.”

“It was me.” He said sadly. 

“Maybe in some other world than, but he’s not the one I want all that with, you are, kind, sweet, wonderful you.”

“I just-“

“I know you’re scared Fitz and it’s hard to discern one reality from the other but you would never hurt an innocent person.” She stepped forward to embrace him. He stiffened for a moment but loosened up after a minute or so, his arms came up to circle around her shoulders. “For the record Fitz,” she said angling her head up to look him in the eyes, “whenever you’re ready to ask, the answer is yes.”

He freezes up again and she tucks her face into his neck. After a moment she feels him press his lips to the top of her head. “What else do we need to pack?”

“I think I’ve nearly got it all.” Jemma said, pulling away. She gave the room another once over, there were a few Knick knacks on the dresser in the corner. She took a closer look, determining only the most recent letter from her parents made the cut. She turned around to see Fitz kicking shut the lower drawer of his bedside table. A few things were discarded on the bed but his hands were shoved into his pockets.

“I think we should check the kitchen to see if any of our mugs made it through the fray.”

“I’m not sure they’ll serve tea in prison.”

“I’ll have to start a riot.” A small smile peaked its way onto Fitz’s face and Jemma felt one creeping onto her own. Fitz scooped up his box and made to pick up hers as well but she beat him to it. “I’ve got it, you’ll need to grab your go bag as well.” Jemma moved to the bed to collect her own. Her eyes lingered briefly on the pile Fitz had dumped out from the drawer to make sure he hadn’t left something he might one day regret. Nothing stood out but she noticed a sketchbook under the pile.

“You should take that with you, it’s got some great ideas in it.”

“What-oh-yeah I guess, I could always pick one up later.”

“Well you don’t want to lose all that work you’ve already started, you’ve got some room there.”

Fitz picked up the hardcover sketchbook, looked it over and slid it into the box. “After you.”

**Author's Note:**

> That last little bit may reference a future fic I want to write. I think Fitz is going to be hesitant to create anything in the future. Also Fitz was definitely hiding something from Jemma in that bottom drawer but its a good something. Something he almost left behind but I think Jemma got through to him there at the end.


End file.
